


Love cannot buy me Humanity

by Splotcher



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Cat!Harvey, Cats, Fractured Fairy Tale, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 17:34:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Splotcher/pseuds/Splotcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anon promp: Harvey used to be a cat but was granted by a witch he could be human until the day he found his true love. Closing himself off from others to retain his homo sapien status. </p>
<p>Enter Mike.</p>
<p>Cue, cat's ears popping out an maybe a tail.. forcing himself to try and hate Mike only making the condition press against time faster.</p>
<p>He quits his job. People don't know what to think..</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love cannot buy me Humanity

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and constructive criticisms are welcomed. I hope you enjoy this little fractured fairytale.
> 
> \--Splotch

He loves the taste of Tuna, even after all this time. 

Tuna is the meal of the day. But he doesn’t eat it straight from the tin, like the formative years. He orders out. He gets the best cuts, puts other things with it that he’s learned to like almost as much.

It tastes a little off today.

Days off are a quiet reflection time for him. A look back on all he’s accomplished. There is an unforeseen edge to that reflection today.

It has been ten years, seven months, and twenty-two days from the start of his journey from back alley king to the Prince of New York. 

He loves it. He can’t live without it, he can’t go back.

Which makes his current predicament a problem.

He woke up this morning and his tail was back.

At first he had a thrill of pleasure about it. Of all the things he had lost, his tail had been the hardest to cope with. The long, luxurious pride, the way the others had been so damn jealous….he compensated now with high dollar suits and being just as perfect as he was then, but he had always missed it.

But then he realized the horrible implications of that.

Humans do not have tails. Regardless of what some fetishes will wave on their banners, Humans do not have four foot long mottled brown and black tails, regardless of how good it looks on him.

But he shouldn’t be having a tail, unless he was about to change back.

He can’t change back. He just got really used to walking on two legs. 

He taps his mug on the counter, considering his next step. He didn’t have to ask why it was happening. That was obvious. Now was only a matter of how to reverse it, or if that wasn’t possible, stop it altogether. 

If he thought getting angry would help, he would have. But he’d had a life before Human, and in that life he knew the ultimate futility of anger about things he couldn’t control. Hissing at the rain didn’t make it stop. Only a level head could give him the shelter he needed now.

If only he hadn’t hired Mike!

But there was so much potential, and he was so open and friendly, and he’d felt steadily more possessive over the kid since he got to know him.

It was supposed to just be a friendship at best, but the tail is proof to the contrary. 

He always knew it was borrowed time. Lived life to the fullest, did his damndest not to form attachments, and had thought (mistakenly, now he supposed) that if he was going to fall in love, it would be with Jessica, but it didn’t and now he’s been blindsided with it.

Apparently love does happen overnight. He supposes the lack of female company he’s been bringing over is a blessing in disguise-he can’t imagine how to explain this to a hysterical female in the morning.

There are only a few options left to him. He could allow the transformation to fully manifest, and fall from the sky to the pavement with the memories of this perfect life. Or he could leave. Surely the transformation would stop if he just got away from Mike. Surely it would. Then he could set up shop again. Los Angeles. Paris. Anywhere but here.

He does his best to ignore the sharp pang in his chest. He doesn’t know if it’s because he doesn’t want to leave his home…or…

No, best not to think about that. He had to do what was best for himself. 

Harvey Specter was, first and foremost, a cat after all.

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^

What do you mean, he quit?!” Mike is flabbergasted, floundering beside Donna. The both of them are staring at the very distraught Jessica in shock.

“He quit just this morning. I went to his apartment, and it’s been cleaned out. He’s totally disappeared.”

“He has to be in some sort of trouble-”

“No shit, Mike. How do we track him down?” Donna is trying to keep a level head despite her agitation.

“If he doesn’t want to be found, then it would be unethical to track him down using our vast resources. That being said, Mr. Ross, you are taken off all cases. Find Harvey. And keep this quiet. Donna, reschedule all of Harvey’s appointments for the next two weeks.” Jessica schools her face. “We don’t need everyone knowing that we have an awol senior partner. He’d better have a damn good reason for putting me through this.”

*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^

Two days after he quit, he gets another call from Mike. He lets it go to voicemail, just like all the others. 

But he always listens to them later. It turns out to be a bad idea, because every time he hears the voice he feels that pang of regret. 

And now he cannot leave the new apartment he found. A tail is easy to hide. Claws? Elongated teeth? Ears? Not so much.

He ponders letting it go. Deleting it off his phone. But he can’t. So he lets it play, just one more nail on the coffin.

_“Harvey, if you’re getting this, you’re kind of scaring me. I wish you were back. I’m, like, five minutes away from doing illegal things to find you. I know I’m a reflection of you, and you are about to break the law._

_You know…you could have come to me if you were in trouble. I may not be much, but I would have listened, you know? I can help, regardless of your flagging faith in my abilities, and just for the record, I think this is a shitty way to leave. Jessica and Donna are freaked out about you. I’m freaked out about you. Dude, I care about you. You are my friend, and we could have been more than that…shit, I’m sorry, I’m talking to much and…you know what? We could have been. Damnit, Harvey where are you?!”_

The message ends abruptly.

And just like that, the affirmation of Mike’s own wants, and Harvey Specter, high priced lawyer and Prince of New York…

Simply ceases to exist.

^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^

Five days after Harvey Specter quits, Mike Ross finds himself breaking into an apartment in San Francisco. 

Inside, he hopes to find Harvey, or at least some answers. 

He gets in surprisingly easy, and finds himself in an unfurnished apartment, complete with boxes still closed with packing tape. A walk through the apartment reveals a few articles of clothing he recognizes as being Harvey’s, a Harvard sweatshirt in a pile of clothes. Odd.

He gets steadily more confused as he walks around the apartment. Looking in the boxes confirms that he’s in Harvey’s apartment-there are items there that he’s seen in the apartment in New York, sentimental trinkets, one or two suits, but almost nothing of the lavish lifestyle he left behind.

He hears movement and his heart soars for a second.

“Harvey?!”

A plaintive meow answers him, and he stares down at the brown tabby cat that looks back up at him steadily.

“Where’d you come from, boy?” He reaches a hand down and strokes the large cat’s head. “I don’t suppose you know where Harvey went?”

A sad meow was the only reply.

*^*^*^*^^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^

 

Jessica is stroking his head and looking distraught. They have not called the police. Indeed, what could they say? Our Lawyer Harvey Specter, with all of his financial assets, quit his job, took the money, and disappeared? And look, he left a cat! 

How would they even consider it a case? There is no foul play. No death threats ( recently, anyway), and while the circumstance are suspicious, they don’t add up to an investigation.

Harvey Specter is lost from this world.

And he is beyond depressed.

Depression isn’t something cats feel. Cats are survivors. They may feel pain, frustration. Loss. But never depression.

That is strictly a human emotion, and he’s been turning back into a cat for more than a week.

Jessica is taking this hard. He never wanted her to feel this much pain. He has tried to purr at her, but his purr is strangled. He tries to give comfort, which made her smile a bit as he rubbed his head against her chest, but the smile broke his heart, and he finally had to stop and settle on her skirt and pretend to sleep.

As a human he didn’t care. Now as a cat he cared and felt too much.

Donna has been in several times. She keeps a stony expression on her face, but he’s known her for so long, he can see the signs that she’s been crying.

Mike comes in periodically. He shuts his eyes and refuses to look until Mike turns to leave. Then he opens his eyes and watches the sweet boy walk away.

Maybe if he sees Mike leaving enough times, he’ll be able to believe he can do it too.

The day drags on. Jessica finally leaves when he meows at her incessantly, trying to get her to pay attention to anything except the paper she had been staring at for twenty minutes, trying to glean from it some secret that isn’t there.

Jessica takes him home. Ever since he came back in Mike’s arms, he’s been going home with her. Donna made it clear she wanted nothing to do with the cat. Her anger at him was displaced, she was angry at human Harvey. Mike’s apartment didn’t allow pets, something that had deeply upset Harvey. Everything was conspiring against him.

Jessica took him in, fed him. Shut him in, brought him back to work with her. Maybe she was afraid that he would run off, like her human Harvey.

Which he will. Tonight.

She makes him food (tuna, while telling him that Harvey liked it just as much as he does). She tells him a story and Does Not Cry. She feeds him a tidbit, curls up on the bed and tries to fall asleep. He stretches out beside her and helps.

When she’s finally out, he slips away. He goes back to the window with the latch slightly ajar, in the bathroom. He manipulates it like a cat shouldn’t know how to do, and slips out onto the ledge.

Her apartment is ten stories up, and it takes awhile for him to navigate to the ground. But reflexes and tenacity were always his specialty. 

He looks up at the window he escaped from, but doesn’t meow. He walks away.

He walks for a long time.

He ignores other cats, dashing out to protect territories and food. A dog tries to run at him, but stalls in its tracks, confused as to why he does nothing in return. When he still doesn’t run, the dog loses interest and wanders away.

He walks for what seems like forever. He doesn’t register how tired his legs are, only about how much it hurts to see the people he loves in so much pain, Donna, Jessica, Mike…

Mike…

“So you have returned little Bōrei…how did you like your walk amongst mankind?”

He starts suddenly at the voice and looks up. 

It has been exactly ten years, seven months, and thirty days since the last time he saw her face.

^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^

‘Enenra…’

She is very beautiful. 

Her hair is smoky gray, but her face is smooth and her features are young, and something about the way her eyes shine remind of something that makes his heart ache so badly…Mike.

“You lasted so much longer than the others, little Bōrei. But I’ve been keeping tabs on you. I would not have picked the name Harvey, by the way. But I am curious…how did it feel for you to be human?”

He twitches his whiskers and thinks ‘Wonderful. Awful. Beautiful. Terrible. I didn’t want to come back.’

She laughs and he jerks in surprise. Then he feels a little foolish.

“Don’t feel bad. You are bound to forget something in ten years. So you did not want to come back? But love is powerful, is it not? Your mate must be very pleased.”

The anguished yowl is out before he can stop it, surprising the witch. 

“What is wrong? Surely she cannot find fault with you. You are a handsome and brave cat, who survived the human world in ways that some humans can only dream.”

‘I didn’t fall in love with a cat.’ He thinks miserably.

“Oh?…oh, I see…you fell in love with a human.” She frowns. “I did not anticipate that. But you were always something of a mystery, little Bōrei. Always doing the exact opposite of what is expected. You know,” She leans down and picks him up, cradling him against her chest, “I only expected you to last a few months. So many females following you, I was sure you’d eventually settle on one, Oh King of the Back Alley. I expected you to grow bored of humanity like so many others. But you didn’t. You became so successful, so quickly.”

Her tone changes. “I was worried that I might have to deal with you.”

He looks up at her quizzically.

She smiles down at him. “I did not realize it at the time…my own mistake…but did you know that you are the very first of your kind, little Bōrei? An American nekomata? Your tail has not split, but everything else indicates what will surely happen. You are almost twelve pounds. You have lived a very long time, even before you met me. And you have shown an intelligence far beyond that of a normal cat. I still remember the night we met, and you saved me, sweet little Bōrei.”

‘I somehow doubt they would have caused much damage.’

“No, but it was the thought that counted. You always did have a strong sense of justice. Then you became a lawyer. Were you trying to become unlikeable, little Bōrei?”

‘Yes.’

This startles a laugh out of the witch. 

“I fear I should not have told you the restrictions of the spell-of course little Bōrei would figure out a way around it, and now I shall have to be all the more careful the next time. But enough of that. Will you tell me about those that you love, of those you have met, and the adventures you have had?”

He tells her everything he can think of except, maybe, the one thing he isn‘t ready to speak about yet. So he tells her about Jessica. Donna, Louis, the firm, the associates, food, wines, beds that don‘t move or bite, cars that he can drive, cases, everything comes spilling out because all of it is amazing and gone forever. She’s easy to talk to, and she feels like safety and kindness and pureness, and it crosses his mind that Mike might feel like that too…

“Who is ‘Mike’?” She looks at him. “Your thoughts return to him always. Is he the one you have given your heart away to?”

‘…yes.’

“Oh. Little Bōrei, I never meant to cause you pain. Or your friends. It was only my intent to give you a taste of human life for a month or so. I didn’t realize it would turn into a decade long lesson in humanity. You can never be a true cat again.”

‘I want to be human.’

“I cannot do that.”

‘…why?’

He knows the plea is broken and pathetic, but he can’t help it. His world is crumbling around him.

“Because the spell only works once. I am sorry. But I can tell you that your own power has grown to such a point that you could take on human form yourself.”

‘How?!’

“The power is there. You just need a catalyst. You need a kiss, freely given by your true love, that will give you the power to change back to the form you desire most. Did you hear that?”

‘Of course I heard.'

“Patience little Bōrei. I was not speaking to you. I was speaking to little Michael.”

 

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*

He stares at her for a long time.

She seems solid enough, but her body becomes hazy at the edges, like she might drift away into a puff of smoke if the right amount of wind hit her.

Beside him, Jessica and Donna are gaping. They don’t know what to make of this woman, and frankly, neither does he.

When Jessica called him to tell him the cat left, he had felt a compulsion to find the animal. He had left his apartment and headed to Jessica’s part of town, hoping to run across the big tabby.

Somehow, he, Jessica, and Donna found themselves in the same place behind a decrepit old building falling to pieces and overrun by cats.

But it could not have happened that way. This was a coincidence…wasn’t it?

And he couldn’t remember what path he had taken to get here.

But then they heard the woman talking to herself. Talking about turning something human. And when they walked towards her, he saw the cat, paws on her chest, head stretched up in a way…it almost seemed like it was talking to her.

Surreal.

She called the cat little Bōrei. Then she had looked right at him and said ‘little Michael.’

This was too freaky.

“How do you know my name?” He finally asks.

“Little Bōrei told me.”

“Bōrei. What does that mean? Is he your cat?”

The cat flattens its ears and growls at him. Donna begins to take more of an interest, looking very closely at the cat and the moves it made. 

“Little Bōrei belongs to no one…he was a once King, a past Prince…”

“That tells me absolutely nothing. What does Bōrei mean? And how does a cat tell you my name? He’s a cat.”

“You don’t recognize your Harvey?”

“Harvey is not a cat. He would have told me.” Jessica finds her voice firmly. The cat seemed to shrink a bit.

“Really? And how would you have reacted to the revelation?” The woman looks at her. “Would you have accepted it?”

“I would have thought he was crazy. Which, honestly, I think I’m heading there now. Where the hell are we? And who are you?”

“I am Enenra…and you are Harvey Specter’s family. Do you want him back?”

“Yes.” The word is out of his mouth before he can stop himself.

“Then you heard what you had to do.” She holds out the cat as it squirms and yowls in protest.

“You want me to kiss the cat.”

“Yes.”

“And the cat will turn back into Harvey if I do it?”

The woman just smiles.

“I have to be hallucinating. There is no way this is happening. My boss is not a cat, there is not a smoke…woman looking at me, and I am not in an alleyway overrun by cats with my Boss’s Boss and his secretary….thinking about this.” Mike babbles a bit, because this is ludicrous, can’t be real…

“I’m leaving.” Jessica glares at the woman. “You think you can pull this prank? Harvey was … is one of my closest friends. And you are trying to sell me this fairy story? Understand right now Enenra, or whatever the hell your name is…I will be looking into you, and when I find out about you and your involvement in his disappearance…let’s just say it will not end well for you.”

But the cat, Bōrei, is looking at him in a very Harvey-like way and Donna is nudging him forward, like she knows, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she did, because it’s Donna, and Donna knows everything.

“Do it.” Donna says to him.

“You can’t be serious.”

“What happens in the creepy back alley stays in the creepy back alley. Kiss the cat.”

“That is so not reassuring.”

“Why are you encouraging this?” Jessica stares at Donna.

Donna looks back at her. “The cat acts like Harvey. We are in an alleyway I can’t remember getting to. We are talking to a woman that is at times, literally not all there. I think we’ve passed the rational part of the evening. Besides, if this is a prank, you have the resources to sue, starting with every person you can think of.”

She gives Mike a push and he finds himself with an armful of cat when the woman drops the animal into his arms.

The cat is studiously looking away from him.

“I think we’re supposed to kiss.” He tells the cat. It looks up at him, unreadable.

He swallows down the lump of this is crazy, worse than a bad trip feelings and shifts the cat into a better position.

Then for the first time in his life, he kisses a cat on the mouth.

The first thing he registers is heat. Then weight. The a very familiar voice emitting from a very unfamiliar form.

“I am supposed to be human. What the hell is the holdup?”

Donna squeaks. Jessica is speechless.

And Mike is holding a massive, two-tailed talking cat that sounds like Harvey Specter. 

“Patience, Bōrei. You have to let the power build. It should only take a few days of practice to be human. By that time, you can be Harvey Specter all you like.”

Jessica’s mouth is working with no sound. Donna is staring at the cat.

“H-Harvey?” He manages to get out.

The cat flattens its ears back and whips its head back around from talking to the woman. It stays like that for a moment and Mike gets a good look at Harvey’s eyes, now human on a cat’s face. 

The cat seems to hesitate. “Mike.”

“So.”

“So.”

“You’re a cat…”

“…Yes. I am. But I’ll be human soon. I promise.”

“You’re a cat.”

“…Yes, Mike, we already covered that. I thought you were a genius.”

And with that bit of snark, Harvey found himself crushed up against Mike’s chest in an awkward embrace.

“I thought I lost you. I don’t even mind that you’re a cat. Well, you know I’d like you to be human for lots of things, but you know I’m so glad to see you’re okay and-”

“Mike.”

“Yeah?”

“Breathe. Then shut up.” Harvey seemed to pull off amusement even without a human face. He just smiles and buries his face into the soft fur.

“Harvey.”

“Donna.”

“I now know why you are unhealthily obsessed with fish. I’m getting you cat toys for Christmas.”

“Haha. So funny.” He flicks one of his tails in her direction. “Which one of your parents is allergic to cats again?”

Jessica looms into the conversation suddenly and Harvey goes silent.

She just stares at him.

He looks back at her. “She was right. I didn’t want you to think I was crazy. I liked you a lot and I didn’t want you to make me leave.”

She just keeps on staring at him. Finally she speaks.

“I know why you didn’t do it. And I’m still not convinced I’m not crazy. But if you turn into my Harvey, I’ll forgive you. I’m giving you three days-that will be the end of your accumulated vacation. Then you’re coming back to work, even if you have to eat your meals out of a saucer.”

She walks away even as Harvey breaks out into a loud purr.

Farther away, towards the part of town that didn’t have decrepit alleyways and run down buildings, a woman in grey smiles as The Back Alley King ascends to his throne as Prince of New York once more.


End file.
